9.29.2011

My last posts lost me two followers. I don't know why I noticed. I wish I didn't notice the number, but it's right there when I log in. Maybe I should disable that. I have also gotten quite a few worried comments and emails. You all know I am just fine, right? Just fine. Happy. Reflective and tired and happy. It's the tone around this dusty place. In person I am peppy. Chipper. Bubbly, even.

The other day I drove past what appeared, from my peripheral vision, to be a makeshift shrine for a car accident victim. Teddy bears and flowers. But when I looked straight at it, it was a very overly-decorated sign for an estate sale. I love estate sales, but they had already unintentionally depressed me. Tone is everything. I hope I am not unintentionally depressing you. Am I unintentionally depressing you?

I now present with you with peppy, chipper, and bubbly.

Hearts and stars and sandwiches and strawberries! Gingham and ginger ale! Bunnies and babies! Pink and gold! Sunshine and radio!

9.22.2011

It is normal to be fickle right? As fickle as I am? Geeze Louise. I started listing some of my vintage kids items (just a FEW items, like, what was on the very top of the pile) on etsy last week and immediately became too overwhelmed with the process and now I feel like pulling them down and not dealing with it at all. Why is that? WHY? There were, like, strings inside of me pulling me back, fighting forward motion, every step of the way. And, so, something that should be kind of fun (in theory it would be SO FUN) felt arduous.

I just don't know.

I always see people talking about their projects. I need a project. And it needs to come out of my own brain. I am circling and circling with creative ideas and energy but don't know how to make them add up to anything. I don't know where to rest. I am praying for a landing field.

So I fuss around the house, moving furniture and switching where pictures hang and making things a little bit new and different. It gets me by and makes me feel better, but it isn't IT. It's just the overflow.

Do you have one? A project? A landing field? Something to work on that makes you feel like the youiest you? Where did it come from? And how did you know?

9.13.2011

I know I should have updated on school but I didn't want to because it wasn't that great of an update. Clark was crying a lot when I dropped him off. Banging on the window, screaming his head off, the whole bit. That never ever happened last year. It caught me off guard. I think it is getting better though. I hope it is getting better.

I know I don't write as much as I used to. Or as much as I could. I appreciate that a lot of you stick around anyway. It's dumb. I'm happier when I'm writing here.

You know that feeling when you are driving over a bridge and you take ahold of your entire self and freeze it into place with the one goal of not driving off the side? Don't you always get to the top and start thinking, damn, I should really google the statistics on how many people accidentally drive off the side. It is probably a lot. This has to be a thing that happens. I mean, how do all of these people exercise self control appropriately and continue driving in a straight line?

I feel like that about being a mom too. Like, being a mom is like driving. Stick with me. I feel like I am driving, all the time. At night when the kids are in bed I am still aware, always on edge. I don't want to drive off the side. Always double checking and double checking. I sleep, but only kinda. I wake up if someone cries seemingly BEFORE THEY EVEN CRY, that is how fast I respond. When they are awake it never stops. It is "do not drive off the edge, do not drive off the edge, do not drive off the edge, just keep going in a straight line" all day and every day. I don't take a break or a nap or a shower or lunch. I don't because I can't.

And then I think, wait, HOW are other people doing this? How? How do they take care of their kids and make three meals and snacks and get the food and keep the bathroom from reeking of poorly aimed urine and change all those diapers and do laundry and keep it from being wrinkled and put it away and vacuum and hands-and-knees clean the ten feet surrounding the high chair that are covered in food bits? How do they all just keep going, straight ahead, and then... write? They write too? They write on their blog, like, a lot? And tweet? And chit-chat blah blah networknetwork here are my photos and googles and tumbles! How on Earth. I just don't even. I don't know.

Maybe it is that my kids are so close in age. Three kids in 3.5 years is, uh, challenging. Maybe I have too high of standards. Maybe my house is too small and our budget is kinda tight. Or maybe it is just like this for everyone, no matter. Is it? Is it like this for you?

9.06.2011

Do you remember when you were about 17 and you were in lots of ways kind of a grown up but in lots of ways not one at all? How you would go out to eat with your friends and have to ask for a table and the hostess would say, "How many?" and instead of just answering her like a normal human you would look at each other and giggle and then stutter out a number followed by and preceded by the non-word "um"?

I asked for a table a couple of weeks ago and when I sat down I wondered what happened and how many hostesses I had to stutter at before getting a table just wasn't a big deal. It's just getting a table. It's just saying a number at a person and whatever, no big deal or anything and also could we please sit outside? That's the thing I like about being a grown-up, even more than the freedom. I like all the practice I have had at doing people-things. I like the lack of anxiety in those situations.

I still need practice in some areas.
I still need practice with sending my kids to school.

Alice really really really really wanted to go to preschool this year. So I am sending her. She is three, and old enough to be in the class Clark was in last year. The idea of being away from her for eight hours a week makes me want to sit on the concrete of the parking lot and cry.
Clark is going to be in the fours class -- the last class before the big K. A year from now he'll be in Kindergarten and just the thought of that makes me want to do that parking lot sob thing for three days straight.

Last year Clark had an iffy year. He struggles with things. He hates to be told that he has to stop doing something. He is not good with transitions. He struggles with following directions. He locks in on the stuff he likes and tunes the rest of the world out. He is going to school tomorrow. I am so nervous and I know I am supposed to relax but I don't have practice with this. I go to his school and I feel like a little girl with big emotions that don't make sense and not like a mom who knows how to get a table at a restaurant without saying "um".

I haven't blogged in almost two weeks because I have spent all of that time with my laptop folded up and stuck under my bed. I could feel school looming and squeezing and growing larger, out of focus for awhile but directly in front of me now.
I miss my kids and they haven't left me yet.
I am grateful for this chance to spend time alone with the baby. He needs me to look him in the face at eye level for more minutes of the day. I am happy I get to talk to him in mama-language and spend 20 minutes (in a row!) trying to get him to say one word. I am glad for that. I also need this break. Having three kids in under four years makes your brain feel like it's about to fall out. I actually need this break for my mental health. I think the entire house -- the floors and surfaces and walls and everything-- will sigh in relief because there will finally be a stretch of time where someone isn't spilling something on it.